Kanagawa Kinetic Coffee Table

Furniture & Lighting Workshop

Matt Richardson is a San Francisco-based creative technologist and Contributing Editor at MAKE. He’s the co-author of Getting Started with Raspberry Pi and the author of Getting Started with BeagleBone.

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June 26th, 2011 2

I think William “Alex” Mecker’s Kanagawa Coffee Table would make a nice conversation piece in any living room. And at the very least, serves as excellent inspiration for laser cut furniture and mechanics.

Inspired by the work of kinetic sculptors Theo Jansen & Reuben Margolin, the Kanagawa Coffee Table is the result of a merge between the warm aesthetic of wood and cold feel of mechanics. The table is constructed of 298 pieces of laser cut Baltic Birch plywood, oak dowels, rubber “o” rings, and conduit that are set into an elegant & complex wave motion with a turn of the hand crank. The clear glass top makes for the perfect window to view the inner workings & measures at 50″x30″, offering plenty of usable space.

[via Laughing Squid]

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2 thoughts on “Kanagawa Kinetic Coffee Table”

Matthew Daughtrey says:

June 27th, 2011 at 2:09 am

This would be cool with a geared motor to turn it slowly as you enjoyed your coffee. Also for me I think it would make it much harder to figure out when the coffee cup was on the glass. Perhaps attach little pistons to the end of the arms which push against the glass and spill your coffee periodically. The lesson could be that you shouldn’t take your coffee for granted. I know I don’t, judging by the way I spill it without the aid of 298 pieces of laser cut Baltic Birch plywood. I don’t need any plywood at all.

What were we talking about?